Next IE Drops ActiveX Warning

Are you as annoyed by some of the ActiveX controls you find on certain
web pages, that give you a "Click to activate and use this control"
message as many are?. It's soon to disappear.

The issue first started with a dispute between Microsoft and Eolas
Technology. Because of this, in April 2006, Microsoft made a
modification to Internet Explorer. The message appeared on ActiveX
controls that were directly embedded in HTML, rather than being
injected via JavaScript.

Next month, Microsoft will preview the modified Internet Explorer (IE) that eliminates the warning that's been popping up on screens when users select multimedia content, such as clicking on a link to a Flash file or a PDF document. That notice first appeared in IE in April 2006, when Microsoft began requiring users to approve ActiveX controls the first time they were run from the browser.

The settlement with Eolas -- it followed a $521 million judgment in 2003 against Microsoft in a patent infringement dispute between the two companies -- paved the way for Microsoft to license Eolas' technologies, which in turn meant that IE could ditch "click to activate."

Just think. for those of you who have experienced this, you could have avoided it with Firefox (hint, hint).